John Holbo, of the National University Of Singapore, posed the discussion question, “Does anyone ever get the
revolution they asked for” referring to the revolutionaries that instigated
them. The result could be defined as either
a success or a failure, but it is never what was anticipated from the initial
plan. The statement that, “revolutions
start out general and become more narrow as internal politics determines which
factions wins out” is a reason why, no, the revolutionaries could not get what
they wanted because they themselves did not know the specifics of what they
wanted. However, examples like, The
Mexican, American and Velvet Revolution were used to support the theory that
the revolutionaries got what they had wanted.
The question rises two prominent questions,
“what counts as a revolution” and “where do you stop the clock”. Revolutions are ongoing and one can only make
an attempt to define their timeline and their prominence from hindsight. The idea of being able to the categorize
revolutions as either a success or a failure would require narrow perspective and
depends completely on the observer’s bias.
1 comment:
These are some really intriguing questions. I would dispute that the American revolutionaries got what they wanted - most expected a virtuous republic, led by elites (natural aristocrats) with no "factions" (political parties), and instead got a highly competitive, relatively democratic (if you were a white male), highly partisan place with a roaring capitalist economy. Gordon Wood puts this best, I think, in Radicalism of the American Revolution. I don't know very much about the Egyptian situation, but I do remember being very skeptical about all the people in Tahrir Square who seemed to have such a high opinion of the democratic nature of the Egyptian army.
Post a Comment